


Nowhere to Be

by allonsys_girl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV John Watson, Retirementlock, Sleepy Sex, cause that's just who they are, they have shit communication sometimes even after a million years together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:39:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsys_girl/pseuds/allonsys_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is ready to retire. Sherlock is ready to retire. But they always assume they know what the other one is thinking, and often they really, really don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nowhere to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainsjm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainsjm/gifts).



> This is my very first fic commission - commissioned by captainsjm who wanted the last case, the reason the boys retire, and misunderstandings on both sides. I absolutely LOVED the prompt, and I really adore this fic. I hope all of you do, as well!

Late afternoon sunlight slants across the terminally cluttered desk top, a lazy tendril of smoke from Sherlock’s pipe wafting hazily through it. John’s objections to this new pastime had been noted and then assiduously ignored, Sherlock insisting that at the age of nearly sixty five, one ought to be allowed to maintain a few bad habits simply out of spite for being so goddamned old. John had acquiesced, knowing after twenty five years together that there were some rows he just wasn’t destined to win. The smell of burning cherry and vanilla, hickory and cinnamon, filled the sitting room most afternoons now, and John finds he actually rather likes it, as long as he doesn’t think about what it’s doing to their lungs.

“You seen my glasses, love?” John asks, lifting a sheaf of papers to the side and feeling underneath. “I was absolutely sure I set them here when I was on the phone with Harry, and yet…”

“They’re in the kitchen. You took them off when you were making coffee.” Sherlock says casually, affection plucking at the edges of every word. He looks up at John over the ridge of his laptop screen and puffs at the pipe between his teeth - an ivory encrusted relic he’d discovered in a dusty shop in Notting Hill a few weekends ago. It’s nothing but overwrought Victorian filigree and someone else’s tooth marks on the stem, and John finds it loathsome. Sherlock adores it. “Actually, fetch me a fresh cup while you’re in there.”

John rolls his eyes and huffs in mock exasperation, unable to hide the smile that’s always there right under his grumbly exterior. The smile that belongs only to Sherlock, just like the rest of him.

Sherlock smiles back, his eyes as brightly intelligent and twinkling as they had ever been. His face is a bit weathered, laugh lines etched deeply at the corners of his eyes, wrinkles round his mouth, his jaw gone a bit jowly, but he’s as dangerously handsome to John as he had been nearly thirty years ago. John crosses the room and lays a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder as he bends to drop a kiss on silvery black hair.

“You’re lucky you’re so fit. If you were an ugly bugger, you couldn’t boss me around half as easily. Hand me your cup.”

Sherlock swats at John’s arse as he turns to go into the kitchen. “You like it when I boss you around. I’ve been bossing you around for three decades now, and yet _here you are_.”

The emphasis on the last three words isn’t lost on John. He unscrews the lid of the carafe, pours, and stirs sugar into Sherlock’s cup, allowing his mind to drift back to that first night. The first - but not by far the last - time he was knocked nearly flat by the intensity of Sherlock’s changeable green eyes staring into his own. He can still recall with clarity the shimmering exhilaration of that night - the way it was as if suddenly the world had opened to him in a way it never could have without Sherlock Holmes at his side. The sky had seemed to grow until the movement of the stars had made him dizzy, the cobblestones in the narrow streets of Covent Garden had a lustre he’d never noticed, the white tile in the tube station at Baker Street had gleamed and shone like a wall of diamonds. John had never felt wonder like that before Sherlock. Life had been mostly a laundry list of have-to’s, and he’d drudged through, making the best of it. Sherlock had brought a magic into his life - into his soul - that had burrowed down and taken root and forever changed how he saw the world.

“What on earth are you doing in there?”

Sherlock’s voice breaks through John’s reverie. He realises with some surprise that his eyes are moist. Thinking of those early days together often tatters John apart like this, pulling him ragged at the edges. He sometimes finds himself quite missing those daring young men they had been, racing through darkened alleys at 3 am, tackling criminals without a second thought, John stitching them up in the loo after two days of no sleep, grinning at each other with split lips and bloody teeth. They had fallen in love without even knowing what was happening, tethering themselves to each other inexorably until they no longer knew how to breathe without the other. They’d loved each other through death, through marriage, loss. They’d broken each other’s hearts a dozen times before they’d even shared a single kiss.

“John?” Sherlock appears in the doorway, his head tilted to the side in concern. “Are you alright? You’ve just been staring at the cupboard for the last seven and half minutes.”

John shakes his head briskly, swallows down the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine,” He sets the spoon down on the counter and his glasses on top of his head, hands Sherlock his cup. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Sherlock squints suspiciously at him, his mouth tightening slightly. He reaches out, slips his hand down over John’s wrist, lacing their fingers together. Rough skin, callouses, knobbly vaguely arthritic knuckles; Sherlock’s skin against his still makes John shiver. Every time. “You always make my coffee exactly how I like it.”

“Of course I do. You’d pull a horridly overdramatic face and have a temper tantrum if I didn’t. You idiot.” John squeezes Sherlock’s fingers and brings them to his mouth. “Just remembering. How we used to be. All dangerous and stupid and madly in love.”

“I was unaware that we weren’t madly in love anymore. I’ll take note.”

“Shut up. You know that’s not what I meant.” John stretches up, takes Sherlock’s bottom lip softly between both of his, “I’m still absolutely crazy over you.”

“You had better be. I’ve rather come to expect it.” Sherlock mumbles, pressing gently into the kiss as he slips his hand out of John’s grasp and into the curve of John’s spine.

“Always.” John ends the kiss nudging their noses together and draws his thumb over Sherlock’s cheekbone. “You gorgeous creature.”

“Well...I know I don’t cut quite the dashing figure I used to…” Sherlock pats his nonexistent belly as they draw apart.

“You most certainly _do_. Shush. No, it’s nothing to do with us, my love. Just thinking. Getting nostalgic in my old age.”

Sherlock rubs his thumb along the cleft of John’s chin. “Bored, John? I know we haven’t had a case on for a few weeks...we’ll get another, don’t worry.”

“I know we will. We’re practically legendary - Scotland Yard would fall without us.”

“Naturally.” Sherlock settles back in his chair, wraps both hands around his warm cup.

There are a hundred things John wants to tell him, sappy sentimental things about soul mates and broken people who fit together to make a whole, he wants to tell him how waking up next to him every morning still feels like a minor miracle, that the thought of them ever being parted is anathema, that all John needs to be happy is Sherlock’s heavy warmth wrapped round his chest. Sherlock surely knows these things, after half a lifetime together, but John finds himself more and more wanting to give voice to them. Maybe it’s mortality creeping cold fingers into his consciousness as they inch toward seventy. Maybe it’s just that he’s never outright said those things, and he feels like he should have, every day. He wants to _say_ them.

Instead he clears his throat and puts his glasses on the end of his nose, picks up his book. “I’ll pop down to Mrs Hudson’s in a bit, make sure she’s ready for dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?”

“At Greg and Molly’s, remember? For Greg’s retirement? We’re bringing wine.”

“Ah, yes. I have a tendency to push the mundane to the mudroom of my mind palace.”

“Behave. It’ll be fun.”

“If you say so, John.”

***

They do have fun, as it happens. Mrs Hudson sits between them in the cab, as cheerful and chatty at nearly ninety as she’s always been. Greg and Molly live in a tidy little house in a tidy little suburb, which is full to bursting with people when the three of them arrive. Greg meets them at the door, red faced and grinning, pushing drinks into their hands before they’ve even hung up their coats. Molly drops kisses on their cheeks, leads Mrs Hudson to her favourite rocking chair. John ends up being cornered in the dining room, barraged with questions by Greg’s youngest son, who’s trying to get into med school. Sherlock attracts a cadre of worshipful young detectives, and spends the evening holding court, regaling them with tales involving Greg’s bumbling missteps and his own brilliant deductions.

Tender pride swells in John’s chest watching Sherlock, his long hands gesturing animatedly as he spins his stories. _Mine. He’s mine, that beautiful brilliant man. How have I been so lucky?_ Their eyes keep meeting heatedly across the small house, promises caught in the full swell of Sherlock’s pouting mouth, in the way John licks his own. Their hunger for each other has gentled only slightly over the years. Most nights still end with panting breaths and entwined fingers against the pillows, with John smoothing curls away from Sherlock’s sweaty brow as they fall ragged and spent against each other.

By the time they get home from the party, though, they’re both more than half drunk and ready for sleep. John gets Mrs Hudson settled in her flat, and practically crawls into bed. Sherlock follows soon after and they curl tightly together with chaste kisses and murmured endearments. Sherlock falls asleep quickly, as he usually does, and John tries, slotting up along the comfortingly familiar plane of Sherlock’s back and breathing in the smell of him as he inhales and exhales deep and rhythmic, trying to make himself relax.

When that doesn’t work, he wriggles his way out of Sherlock’s grasping arms and tiptoes into the kitchen, pours himself a nightcap. 221b is lovely at night, its increasing shabbiness veiled by the lack of light. John sits in the kitchen, perched on the edge of Sherlock’s Experiments Stool, sucks in a heavy breath. He’d like to be here more. Maybe do some home projects, paint those cracked window sashes, take down the peeling wallpaper in the sitting room and replace it. They’ve been talking about buying a new sofa for half a year and haven’t done it yet. He’d like to lay in bed without worrying about the phone going off. He’d like to bin the sodding alarm clock completely. Sixty eight years of getting up when the bell dings is quite enough, thank you very much.

He realises with the sharp awareness that can only happen alone in one’s kitchen in the middle of the night that he’s _done_. Far from missing cases the last few weeks, he’s relished the silence, the uninterrupted hours of togetherness. They’ve gone shopping together, John’s potted tomato plants and actually remembered to water and feed them instead of letting them wither away into darkened stumps as he normally does. They’ve met Harry for lunch, gone to see a matinee with her in the West End, wandered aimlessly round Trafalgar Square afterward. A long kiss in the foyer one afternoon had turned into a lingering grope in the upstairs hallway, and then melted into a whole afternoon of worshipping each other slow and unhurried.

The thing is, it’s always been extraordinary, their life. It’s been bullets and semtex and gore, it’s always been sleep deprivation and full throttle and explosive and it’s been a goddamned train wreck and it’s been amazing. But it’s been amazing because it’s been _them._

_Want to see some more? Oh, god, yes._

Except that’s all wrong. What John had wanted was the thrill Sherlock gave him, just by being Sherlock. The criminals had always been incidental, the cases superfluous. _Sherlock_ was the variable, the one singular requirement in John’s life. It would have been exhilarating spending the last thirty years managing a second hand bookshop in Yorkshire if Sherlock had been at his side.

Sherlock couldn’t give up the work. It would kill him. _All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots._

John drains his glass, promising himself he’ll say nothing to Sherlock about this revelation. Sherlock would take it all wrong and mostly personally, would think John was unhappy with him, unhappy with their life. No, I'm not unhappy, he thinks. Far from it. I'm just tired, and ready for a different adventure. Something that involves fewer thumps on the head and is lacking entirely in bloated corpses. He rinses the glass and put it quietly back in the cupboard before returning to bed.

Sherlock’s snoring delicately, on his back with one pale forearm thrown over the riot of peppery curls spread on the pillow. John lays on his side to watch him, the shallow rise and fall of his bare chest, a smattering of greying hair spread across his sternum and trailing between prominent ribs. He crawls his fingers across the sheets, brushes the tips gently over the knot of shiny scar tissue just under Sherlock’s right nipple. Twenty five years, and still it aches. Still it’s difficult to forgive himself for what had happened in the months after Sherlock had come back to him. John had failed him, in so many ways, and promised them both that he never would again. The thought that he had almost lost Sherlock _twice_ is still frightening, even as they lie here peacefully in their bed.

John inches forward, suddenly and powerfully needing to be as close to Sherlock as possible. Inside him would be better, inside him and all over him, hot skin and hard breaths and Sherlock's nails scratching down his spine. Carefully, John loops a leg over Sherlock’s thigh, warm and dry under the blankets. Sherlock stirs, sniffs, turns his face into John’s hair and sighs. The arm that had been above his head drops down to curl around John’s shoulders.

“I love you so much.” John whispers against Sherlock’s chest, his mind drifting again, to the memory of the first night they spent together in this bed.

John had been home for a few months, freshly divorced and more than a bit lost, his insomnia as bad as it had ever been. He’d been sitting by the fireplace that night, steadily making his way through a bottle of Glenlivet, when Sherlock drifted out of his room and silently sank down on the floor in front of him. His beautiful eyes had been round and sleepy and sad, and John’s heart had ached with all the things they’d never said to each other, all the things they could never seem to make right. They had gazed softly at each other in the wavering firelight, both too reticent to make anything happen for a long while. In the end, it had been Sherlock, slowly taking John’s glass out of his hand and spreading out John’s fingers, fanning them across his own mouth so he could kiss each one as he looked up at John’s face from underneath his lashes. His mouth was on the translucent skin of John’s wrist before he murmured, “Alright, John?”

“Yes, Sherlock, yes,” John had nearly sobbed the words, falling down into Sherlock’s lap as their mouths met in a marrow deep kiss. They had clasped each other like people drowning, promises and apologies tumbling out between desperate kisses as they fell back on the hearth rug. It had been graceless and fumbling, as first times always are, perhaps more so as the intensity of their desire had rendered their fingers too clumsy, their mouths too hungry to be artful. Afterward, they’d lain gasping in this same bed, feeling as though the entire world had just been undone and put back together between them.

Now Sherlock sighs, his eyelids twitching. “John?” He mumbles, twisting closer against John’s body, still mostly asleep.

“Shhh, go back to sleep, darling,” John murmurs against Sherlock’s sleep warm throat. He slides his arm across Sherlock’s ribs, pulls him close and squeezes.

Sherlock shifts and sinks into John, hums contentedly. John’s eyes finally feel heavy. Just as he’s drifting off, Sherlock’s full lips sweep gently and purposefully across his jaw.

“Thought you were asleep,” John smiles, without opening his eyes.

“Mmm. Was. Not now.” Sherlock squirms closer, his nose pushing into the hollows of John’s throat, fingers exploring up under the ragged hem of John’s well worn tee shirt.

John turns to him, their mouths meeting in a familiar caress, his palm sliding up over the pale expanse of Sherlock’s back. He knows every bump and freckle of this back, every uneven ridge of vertabrae and rib. He’s spent long grey winter mornings kissing the edges of those sharp shoulder blades, he’s spent more than one evening kneading the tension out of every muscle of this beautiful back as Sherlock protested and insisted he didn’t _need a back rub, thank you very much, John, I’m fine_ and then hummed and sighed as every muscle went slack and he nearly fell asleep between John’s legs. He’s dropped miserable tears on the scars that Sherlock suffered while they were apart, laid his cheek against ruined skin and wished he could make it all go away. He’s spent a thousand nights watching the rise and fall of this back, Sherlock sprawled diagonally across the sheets with one foot hanging off the bed.

John presses a hand against that back he loves so much, and pulls Sherlock closer to him. They fit together now as beautifully as they always have, John’s slightly expanding middle tucking neatly into the concave space between Sherlock’s ribs and pelvis. Sherlock’s still nimble fingers untie the tapes of John’s pyjama bottoms, his mouth working gently at John’s earlobe.

“I love you, you know,” John whispers into the dark. He can barely see Sherlock, just the thick wave of his salt and pepper hair against his face, the glimmer of moonlight against the milk white skin of his nape. “I love you so much I can’t see straight sometimes.”

“You never could see _straight_ , John. You needed _bi-_ focals, I’d say.” Sherlock rumbles against John’s ear.

“Oh my god, you’re such an idiot.” John bursts out, laughter ringing into the corners of their bedroom, and rolls so he’s caging Sherlock under him, hands braced on either side of Sherlock’s head. Sherlock’s lopsided grin shines in the dim blue light, and John’s heart feels full to bursting with affection. No, he can’t tell this beautiful, perfect man that their life isn’t good enough, that this isn’t what he wants anymore. Sherlock would be crushed. If John has one purpose in his entire life, it is to make this unearthly creature as happy as possible for as long as possible.

Sherlock’s fingers stretch up to stroke down the rough surface of John’s cheeks, his shimmering moonlit eyes filling with both heat and no small amount of awe. John’s head turns just enough to catch the tips of Sherlock’s index and middle fingers between his lips. The sharp inhalation beneath him makes his eyes flutter shut in the satisfaction of knowing that after all these years, he can still make Sherlock’s breath catch with just the infinitesimal flicker of his tongue.

They move in perfect sync, a shiver of breath over goosebumped flesh giving way to the gentle roll of hips, the rustle of flannel hitting the bare floor, the whisper of skin against skin. John turns them on their sides, Sherlock’s warm naked body cradled in his arms. He peppers Sherlock’s neck and shoulders with kisses as Sherlock undulates and whimpers, digs his fingers into the soft skin above John's hip and rocks gently against him. Sherlock smells like bourbon and peppermints, wool and cold air and vaguely of that diesel smell that lingers in tube stations.

“I’d do anything for you, Sherlock. Anything at all,” John murmurs into slightly sweat-damp curls.

“I know that. You always have.” Sherlock breathes as he reaches to clutch at the headboard. Honest emotion comes easier for him pressed up against John and half lost in pleasure, when he’s not able to think too much before he speaks. “Oh, god, John, please, now, please.”

“What do you want, my love? Tell me.” John’s already reaching back, twisting behind him to get what they need from the bedside drawer.

“Want you.” Sherlock tosses his head back, grabbing at John’s hip with his free hand, “Want you like this. _Please._ ”

“Always so polite when you’re - _oh_ \- naked.” John reaches between them, slick fingers and searingly hot skin, and when he’s inside just enough to curl his fingers, Sherlock gasps out a desperate little cry and his back bends like a bow pulled taut and it’s still - _always_ \- the most beautiful moment of John’s life when he has Sherlock like this. Every time.

Dreamlike, in the muteness of the night, they move close, closer, until John can feel Sherlock’s blood pumping from the inside and John’s heart is thumping like a caged animal against the toned curve of Sherlock’s upper arm. John kisses Sherlock’s jaw and takes him in hand, heavy and blood hot. Sherlock shudders and pushes back, his head lolling into John’s as he turns for a kiss. John presses his tongue between Sherlock’s lips, catching a frantic moan in his mouth as Sherlock thickens in his hand, throbs and pushes back, back.

John pulls away, wanting to watch, always wanting to see the miraculousness of Sherlock’s kiss swollen mouth falling open, his eyelashes twitching against pale cheeks, the way his eyes fly open right at the end, as if he’s startled by his own pleasure.

He smoothes a flat palm against Sherlock’s curved spine, and twists the thumb of his other hand just so. Sherlock's entire body bucks wildly as a sonorous groan reverberates through his chest. John rubs his hand slow up Sherlock's back. “There we go, that’s it, darling. Oh, god, so beautiful. I love to watch you.”

Sherlock’s still trembling when he arches his hips, grinds them in a little circle, encouraging John to take what he wants. John acquiesces, because John always acquiesces to Sherlock, because what Sherlock wants is what John wants. He wraps one short, strong arm around Sherlock’s chest and buries his face in the salty curve of his neck while Sherlock whispers _yes yes yes_ and twists his fingers tight between John’s. John bares his teeth in a silent growl, hips pumping shallowly, flush up against the lovely swell of Sherlock's arse, as he goes rigid for just a moment and then shakes and shakes, shakes nearly to pieces while Sherlock holds him together.

They settle slowly, breathing hard against each other. Sherlock swivels, mouths at the edge of John’s orbital bone, and John squeezes him crushingly tight. They don’t bother cleaning up. Showers and laundry can be done in the morning. Sherlock eventually turns so they’re facing each other and sighs sleepily into John’s mouth. John pulls the blankets over them and flips on his back, pulls Sherlock to rest securely against his chest.

 _This really is all I need_ , he thinks as sleep finally claims him. _Sherlock. Just Sherlock._

***

They get a case the next morning. The DI that trained under Lestrade, Wendy Montague, calls at 6am with a triple murder that somehow happened overnight in a posh shop on Oxford Street while tourists trailed by in droves. The bodies had been arranged like mannequins in the window.

“The shop girl nearly had a heart attack, John! They had to take her to hospital. John, get _up!_ ”

“Stop bouncing round like an overactive otter, and maybe I will. You’re giving me a headache to look at you, my love.” John scrubs his knuckles into his eyes, the dull thud of a hangover resonating at the base of his skull. “Have you had a shower yet?”

“Yes, yes, let’s _go_.” Sherlock’s excitement is tinged by something John can’t quite put a finger on.

“Alright, I’m just going to shower, and then we’ll be off. Be a love and put on coffee while I’m in the loo.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re half jogging down Blandford Street, John warming his hands with a thermos of far too strong coffee. Sherlock is a bundle of nervous energy, twitchy and unsettled. John furrows and sips his coffee, watches Sherlock out of the corner of his eye.

“You alright?”

“Yes, I’m fabulous. This is just what we needed. Been desperately dull these last weeks, just puttering round like two little old men.” Sherlock’s pace quickens.

John bites his lip against all the things about to tumble out. “Yes, love. Exactly what we needed.”

Sherlock smiles in John’s direction, but it’s fleeting, his restless eyes flicking back to the London rush hour traffic as they wait to cross the street. Something’s off. He’s not being convincing enough. Sherlock’s not buying it, he knows _everything_ , he’s got to realise that John’s done. He’s got to be more convincing.

“So, first case without Greg. Feels a bit strange, yeah?”

“I suppose.” Sherlock frowns as the light changes and they cross, stepping around a queue spilling out the door of Pret a Manger.

John grins, hoping it’s an approximation of a real smile instead of the grimace it feels like. “We’ll have to show this DI Montague how it’s done. Think you can actually remember her first name?”

Sherlock laughs, genuine and loudly. The sound of it breaks some of the odd tension that had been between them. One dark eyebrow ticks up. “I wouldn’t hold out any hope of that, John.”

“I thought not.”

They turn the corner onto Oxford Street, already brimming with posh shoppers and wide eyed tourists. The shop in question is at the corner of Regent Street, and it’s been cordoned off with crime scene tape, emergency vehicles blocking the sidewalk. DI Montague happens to see them walking up, and she waves them over.

“Feels like I just saw you two - oh that’s right, I did.” She’d been at Greg’s party the night before. “Way to kick off Greg’s retirement.”

“Take me to the bodies.” Sherlock’s assumed his air of regal superiority, pulling off his leather gloves one finger at a time and looking down at the DI imperiously.

“Sure thing.” She nods and lifts the police tape.

Sherlock ducks under as deftly as he did when they were forty, and John follows heavily, wishing they were sitting at a patisserie having a horribly fattening breakfast, or lazing in bed. Or doing anything but this, really.

***

The case takes a week for Sherlock to solve. It feels longer. Sherlock gets terminally frustrated with himself, refusing tea, sex, sleep. He puffs on that damn pipe incessantly, filling the flat with smoke. He hasn’t been like this on a case in years. By the end of the week, John’s bursting at the seams, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth hurt.

The day the case wraps up, Sherlock comes home from Scotland Yard sullen and silent. He drops into his chair by the fireplace and stares at the cold grate for hours. He stuffs tobacco into the bowl of the pipe and clamps it between his teeth, smoke billowing in thick lingering clouds round his head. John knows these moods, has dealt with them their entire life together. He knows there’s nothing he can do to snap Sherlock out of them. Besides which, he’s not feeling particularly social himself. So he waters the plants, cleans out the fridge, hoovers the sitting room, brings Mrs Hudson her lunch, and generally spends the day treating Sherlock like a piece of furniture.

As evening seeps through Baker Street, a soft purplish hue draping itself across every surface, John feels shredded. By everything he’s holding inside, by Sherlock’s silence. He slams shut the book he’s been vaguely attempting to read, and Sherlock doesn’t even flinch.

“Right. I’m taking a bath and then I’m off to bed.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, barely acknowledges that John has spoken.

He slips quietly into the loo ten minutes later, just as John has laid his head back against the rim of the bath and closed his eyes. He listens as Sherlock lowers himself onto the floor, the slight grunt as he folds his long legs into the small space. John cracks an eye, sees the back of Sherlock’s head bowed, looking into his lap.

He waits.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice is strained, worried.

John reaches up with a dripping wet hand, sinks it into the cloud of soft curls. Sherlock sighs and presses back into John’s touch. John circles his fingertips, rubs his thumb against the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “Talk to me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock lets out a long exhalation, rolls his head on his neck slightly and presses his shoulders back. “I - I. I’m tired, John.”

“Understandable. It’s been a long grueling week.” John says carefully.

Sherlock shakes his head. “No. It’s not just - I think I’m - I don’t _need_ this anymore.”

John’s heart practically soars into his throat. Sherlock can’t possibly be saying what it sounds like he’s saying. John jerks up out of the water, sloshing some over the side and wetting the thigh of Sherlock’s trousers.

“Sorry.”

“S’alright.”

“Just what are you saying, love?”

“I’m saying. I’m saying - I think I’ve changed, John. I think I no longer require the same things I once did to keep my mind occupied.”

“Okay…”

“John, I - I _enjoyed_ puttering around like little old men those weeks when we didn’t have anything on. For the first time, I wasn’t excited when we got that case. I’ve never not been excited about a case, John. I just wanted to - stay in bed with you, and have tea in our pyjamas, and read the papers together. I wanted to watch you water your plants, and go over to Harry’s for dinner, and come home and fall asleep on the sofa watching that awful cooking competition show you like. And I missed that terribly this week when we were working. I hated this week. I hated it, John.”

“Oh, Sherlock.” John murmurs, wishing he could embrace him more easily. “Here, let me - hand me a towel.”

Sherlock passes over the towel, looking dejected and miserable. He looks up at John with wide eyes, his lower lip caught in his teeth. “Are you very disappointed in me? I know you would be so bored without the work. I mean, we don’t have to stop entirely, just maybe take fewer -”

“Sherlock.” John quickly wraps the towel around his waist and takes Sherlock’s face between his warm wet hands. “I feel exactly as you do.”

Sherlock’s head twitches back in surprise, and his face looks so cartoonishly stunned that John has to laugh. Sherlock blinks momentarily, but recovers quickly and begins to laugh too, a slow resonating rumble from deep in his belly. He throws his head back and covers his mouth with one long hand. Every time the laughter starts to fade, their eyes meet and they dissolve into peales of giggling. Finally John slips his arms around Sherlock’s waist and Sherlock looks down at him with a wide grin.

“We are idiots. Full stop.” John shakes his head and wipes at Sherlock’s tear stained cheeks with his fingertips.

“Complete idiots. Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Well, why didn’t _you_?”

“Because I thought you would - be upset. I thought you would try to convince me to keep taking cases, because you - because you love this.”

John brushes Sherlock’s hair back, kisses his throat and his chin and his mouth. His skin feels papery dry, smells like tobacco smoke. “I love _you_. Everything else is ancillary, Sherlock. You know what my favourite thing in the world is?”

“What?” Sherlock smiles crookedly, his eyes soft and black.

“Waking up with you. Every single time, it blows my mind that I get to do this. That I get to have you. And I would really like to just continue to do that for as long as possible - just wake up with you. I don’t really need much else. Food. Tea. A hot bath. And Sherlock Holmes in my bed.”

“But you’ve always -”

“I’ve always wanted what you wanted. I needed the work because you needed the work. That’s just how we are - it’s a bit codependent when I say it that way," John laughs again, his whole body feeling impossibly light, "I guess I just knew somehow...that you were done. So I was done too.”

Sherlock blinks away the wetness shining in his eyes and inclines his neck down to put their mouths together. The kiss is deep and slow, Sherlock’s tongue curling gently into John’s mouth as his wet hair drips cold down his bare back. It feels new. A whole world opening to them; a world wholly lacking in gunshots and morgues, but filled with sleepy Sunday afternoons in front of the fire, and Tuesday mornings in Trafalgar Square, takeaway coffees and holding hands walking down The Strand, the sun glinting off the river in the distance.

Sherlock pulls back, hands resting on John’s towel covered hips. “So. What now?”

“Hmmm. Now.” John scratches his eyebrow and looks at the ceiling, pretends to think about it. “Now, you text Montague and tell her not to send any more cases our way. I don’t want any interruptions tonight. Then, I’m going to get my pyjamas on, and you’re going to make us drinks, and then...then we’re going to do whatever the hell we want. Because we can. Sound good to you, darling?”

“Yes, John. That sounds perfect.” Sherlock’s smile is so pleased and soft, so peaceful.

“Good.”

John thinks he’s never in their lives been fonder, more protective and possessive of Sherlock, than he is right now. He would do anything to preserve this kind of happiness, which has been - historically - precarious and ephemeral. Now it can take shape. Root and grow and become something solid, this calmness between them.

Hours later, John cards his fingers through Sherlock’s hair as Sherlock snuffles softly against his thighs. He’s not in the least tired, though it’s past midnight. The curtains are parted, a sliver of black sky visible above the rooftops across the street. The orb of a streetlamp glows hummingly in the lower corner of the window. John feels attuned to all of it; the London night, the smell of Sherlock’s shampooed hair, that one damned spring in the sofa that always pokes him in the arse. The world feels different again, just as it did that first night. He feels reborn, forty years younger, ready for anything, as long as Sherlock's by his side.

 _Sherlock_. Always his variable, and his anchor.

“Sherlock. Wake up. Let’s get to bed.”

“Mmmm, didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Sherlock mumbles, rising up off the couch and drifting toward the bedroom.

Sherlock smiles sleepily and John grabs his hand, weaves their fingers together. John raises their hands and kisses Sherlock's knuckles, thinking of the night they met, and their first night as couple, and the first night after they were married, and how this one falls in with those. This is the first night they don't have to wake up to the alarm, or worry about a phone going off, or check the blog for leads. The first night when it's just them, the rest of the world be damned.

"It’s alright, love. We didn’t have anywhere to be.”

 


End file.
